Re: JSTOR Announces Free Early Journal Content

[<jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca>]

Persee was actually conceived as a response to JSTOR when some 
French journals began considering joining with JSTOR. Some of us 
met with Jean-Noel Tronc, then adviser to Lionel Jospin, the 
Prime Minister in those years, and we defended the idea that if 
indeed the objective was to project French scholarship urbi et 
orbi, then Open Access was the way to go.

Recently, local political turmoils in Lyon threatened the Persee 
project, but it appears that these fdangers are now past. 
Nonetheless, Persee deserves all the support of the International 
community. There should be a European Persee.

Jean-Claude Guedon

Le vendredi 09 septembre 2011, Laval Hunsucker wrote:

> If one indeed thinks that this is a shame, and that the bulk 
> [or all!] of such material could (or should) be made available 
> to anyone, then one could look, for an enlightened example of 
> just such an approach, to Persee. 
> (http://www.persee.fr/web/guest/home).
>
> That system gives on its "presentation" page, incidentally, the 
> following mission statement (I quote the English version here):
>
> The main goal of the Persee project is to widely disseminate 
> the scientific output of French language specialists in the 
> humanities on the internet. Considered part of France's 
> heritage, the collections are at the disposal of all, without 
> charge, in an optic of free and non exclusive access and 
> dissemination.
>
> The publisher or journal distributor may choose to determine a 
> recent time span, between 2 and 5 years, during which the 
> issues will not be freely available on the internet. This 
> moving barrier is a means for guaranteeing the 
> commercialization of current production, whether in "paper" or 
> electronic form.
>
> Laval Hunsucker
> Breukelen (Nederland)